You know those times when you wonder what you’re doing with your life and decide to move to Alaska where you won’t know anyone and you want to change your name to Michelle or Maria or something that will blend in and then marry someone quickly and then have twenty babies one after the other and then spend nights watching reality shows about antiquing?
That’s where I am right now. I’m thinking maybe Katie. Or Marie. Not sure, but nobody will be able to find me, and it will be marvelous.
It’s just your everyday existential crisis. There’s a bunch of doubt and questions swimming in my brain and shitting on my every thought.
So, I’m going to go away for a bit and figure out what’s up inside my cerebellum. Maybe it’s cobwebs. Maybe it’s a thought traffic jam. Maybe it’s too many yellow triangles. Or just the shedding of all the hard stuff so that 2012 can be fancy and free.
I’m getting off Facebook and the internet and everything (Okay, maybe not Twitter. Who do you think I am?). It is an experiment to see what will happen without all this social shit crowding my thought synapses. The pressure of making my life sound great on Facebook is just too much. Not really.
So, I’m off to go sweep out some spiderwebs (who really says ‘cobwebs?’). In private (WHAT HAS GOTTEN INTO ME?!). In the meantime, if you have any suggestions on what YOU think I should do with my life, let me know. So far opening a dairy farm in Spain and opening a canoe rental place in Panama are the top two (opening a brothel in Afghanistan distant third).
Smell ya later (virtually). Like in a week. How could I live up to my title WORLD’S BESTEST BLOGGER (self-titled) if I disappeared for more than a week?
{ 19 comments }
I will miss. you. See you on the 31st.
I’ll be back before then. Unless the name-changing process takes a long time.
Portland. Move to Portland. That is the best! (Or just travel there for, like, two weeks. Do that. It’s relatively cheap!)
Are there igloos there? Because I was kind of hoping to live in an igloo.
No doubt some hippy can make you a co-op igloo. Out of hemp.
I’m going to name myself Luna and move to the South Pacific to be a pearl farmer.
I see you as Marcy, apprentice blacksmith.
Buddhist monk in France, duh.
Perfect time for coffee and seeing people in their real faces!
Hope this isn’t too drastic. I’d hate to see you give up.
A vacation sounds in order… def, important in January. Perhaps not as important in sunny SoCal but still. Nothing sets you head back on like sand between your toes and a foreign language as a background.
All the best!
I think you should become a Peruvian goat-herder whilst you’re on your internet hiatus.
Not sure why.
It just sprang to mind.
I have the perfect idea: be you. Because you are AMAZING.
Please don’t let the negative time-sucking fucks bring you down. Stand up and fight those bastards.
The best advice I’ve ever kinda taken is “just keep writing, no matter what”.
It’s what makes you happy, so do it for that reason alone.
The rest is just icing on the cake.
I adore you and hope you have a wonderful time in the cave, but come back soon!
xoxox
Hi again, Laurenne,
You wrote a whimsical post and for the most part, got some whimsical comments. But I’d like to get a little more serious, because beneath your humor is a serious issue we all deal with. And that is, getting stuck in patterns that are not moving us towards our goals.
Intuitively, and I suspect intellectually, you understand that our lives are fashioned out of our beliefs and expectations, be they positive or negative. On the negative side, any doubt or fear we carry about losing our wishes makes that happen. By focusing our attention on LACK (the separation between US and what we WANT), we get LACK. And that pumps up more doubt. It’s a downhill spiral many of us fall into.
But you can climb out hole with a few basic psychological tools and an understanding of how they work.
I’m sure you’ve heard about the LAW OF ATTRACTION. (It’s been goin’ around, and it works. I didn’t think it did, but now I do. I’m totally convinced. I see proof everywhere.)
Anyway, you know you’re heading into that downward spiral and you’re thinking, I’ve got to change my thinking patterns to reset future potential.
When you change locations, you set up different opportunities. We all know that’s true. But what you are really setting up, is a justified reason to get your HOPE back, along with more reasons to believe that new opportunities await you, which they do. (They always do.)
You see, the change in location or life style is just a trick we play on ourselves to make us believe new doors are opening. And when we believe they are, good things happen!
It’s not the change of location that makes the difference. It’s your attitude shift about the increase of success. And it works, just like prayer works for people who believe their thoughts are being heard.
So okay, the bottom line is: sometimes we need to stir the stew to get the good stuff up from the bottom. We need to constantly generate opportunities to keep our optimism intact. And we do that by being proactive. And that’s what you are doing, Laurenne. You are reaching out everywhere, professionally and personally. I just know it’s all going to payoff as long as you steer past your doubts. That’s the hard part. But it CAN be done, as long as you BELIEVE it can be done. And you do that by changing your life in little ways all the time. It doesn’t have to be BIG ways. Just something that’s new everyday.
You can do that, right? You ARE doing that!
Yep, Laurenne, don’t fret. It’s all good.
Irv
i feel for you, as i’m kind of in the same situation. i was thinking about a gourmet hot dog restaurant in sunset beach. or a laundromat in south dakota. let me know where you end up, and good luck with your time off. (i gave up on twitter, am fed up with facebook, but am addicted to path and instagram).
Let me be the first to say that … I don’t like Irving. Optimism, shmoptimism.
Please don’t change your name to Marie. It’s the name I hate most of all. Katie is also on my shit list. Maybe just stick with Laurenne. For me.
I’ve been thinking lately that I need a change, too. Perhaps we could do a life swap? That would at least get us our own reality show, and I’ve always wanted to release my own perfume and collection of clothes at Sears. Not really.
Yay! I’m doing that too…and by “that” I mean second-guessing everything I’ve decided about how my life should be and going with ‘fun’ as an answer. It’s not all hearts and stars and right now involves blowing all of my savings to go to South America, but I’m pretty sure I won’t regret it (maybe I will as I have to get a new car and start contributing to my IRA and all that crap…but you only get one go around this bug blue marble). I do want to see you this year though!! And I want to hear all about what you do in 2012. xo
Hang out with me more often. Studies show that making close comparisons to my life have positive effects on mood and sense of purpose.
You are welcome to hang out with me – I moved to Boston and started bartending while I write and teach yoga. (Sounds awesome, right? Totally is.) My name is already Kate and people think it’s fake anyway so there’s a lot of blending I can do. No marrying or babies, but as soon as we get snow, the igloos are ON.
Where did you go?
Oh, you’re back.